Pyrrhic

━━ VI

LYRA HAD WONDERED FOR A LONG TIME WHAT IT WOULD FEEL LIKE TO FLY (as a corporeal being, of course, and not as a cluster of stars with some kind of conscience floating in the middle of the sky with no air to travel through or however humanity thought of it and labeled as astronomy).

She now, kind of, experienced it.

Humans were not able to fly by themselves, for if they tried they might mortally fail, but she had seen how they evolved those big birds they called 'planes', and how they managed to fly through that—though she still wondered how they had achieved that. It was truly magnificent, the way they made the impossible, possible; defying nature and their very own capacities. It was one of the things that made her admire them so much. However, she was not flying in a plane, and it was not a man-made object the one that allowed her to fly: it was the pegasi below her.

"You can talk to pegasi?" She had asked as soon as Percy Jackson told her to get on top of Blackjack, for the equine would take them wherever they needed to go.

She had followed through with his idea, finding herself a nice spot behind the demigod as she tightly held onto the back of his shirt and watched the ground get farther and farther from her feet, which were dancing in the air. The sky was now her ballroom.

"Uhhh, I can talk to horses in general," he had replied, his voice holding a little stutter within it, and she could only guess it was because they were buried in the clouds: the chilling air continuously slapped every bit of exposed skin she had and seeped even through the clothes that were supposed to keep her warm. Perhaps whatever made her more tolerant towards heat also made her more sensitive towards the cold—she was starting to shiver. "Poseidon created them so that's why we can understand each other."

"That is so nice. I wish I could talk to them. They are really beautiful."

Blackjack neighed, a lower pitched sound than the one he had made when he talked to Percy.

"He says thank you," the boy replied, but the pegasus nickered again, as if he wanted to make a point clear. She heard Percy whisper to him, yet she could not distinguish any words, but the pegasus neighed higher, insistent. His wings stilled for a minute, they were planing downwards, and the boy's spine went rigid against her chest after a small 'fine'. "He also says that, uhm, you are beautiful too."

She beamed, letting a giggle leave her mouth. Percy let out a soft laugh, too.

As a lyre, she was told she was beautiful as soon as she was made—such an instrument! Made of gold! Gifted to the finest musician by Apollo himself! A beautiful lyre indeed. As a constellation, she was told she was beautiful many times, but mostly after centuries of being placed in the sky, after many years of being alone and sad and melancholic over things that were not her fault—such stars! Such story! Left behind by its master, whose sad demise was not followed by his closest companion, placed as furthest away from him as the gods could possibly take it instead? A beautiful constellation indeed.

But as a human? She was not told she was beautiful, not yet, at least. The closest thing was when Drew told her the dots that covered her skin were beautiful, but she had never said Lyra was beautiful as a whole. And while she knew beauty was a very subjective thing, that animals and people admired others differently, that aesthetics were dependent on the eye that beheld them, that she was beautiful before and that would logically carry over to whatever body she held, it did not make her appreciate the compliment less. Actually, she appreciated it even more.

It made her think once again about her appearance, though. She wondered why she had taken such looks—they did not correspond with the usual people she saw in the Ancient Times. Her hair was even styled in a specific, modern way: a curtain of it that would have covered her face was cut right above her eyebrows, framing her features. It suited her, yes, yet it was not something that should have just... spawned.